The Summoning
by Exile1
Summary: Six months after the Meteor incident a new war rages, and Cloud and Avalanche's new routine is shattered when Vincent disappears on a mission.
1. A rift in the lifestream

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven, and the characters, names, places, situations and so on, are property of Squaresoft corporation. I own none of them and am making no money off of them. This story was written purely for my own enjoyment.  
  
1 Final Fantasy VII: The Summoning  
  
1.1.1 PROLOGUE  
  
1.2 Mount Nibel, Six Months Later  
  
The sky was its usual ominous shade. It was, he thought, almost as though the forces of nature were going out of their way to make the operation appear darker than it actually was. Whenever lightning flashed across the sky, he was reminded of a thousand B-movies in which the arrival of the bad guy was heralded by a thunderbolt and a terrible rumble.  
  
A ludicrous cliché, certainly, and one that he freely admitted. But however applicable it was to the operation, he found himself unable to regard it as anything more than ludicrous, in any way. He knew, and his associates knew, just how deadly serious was the deed they were attempting here tonight.  
  
"Doctor Kinshar! Please, sir, it's starting! We need you to proceed!"  
  
Jude Kinshar, formerly of Shinra Corp, Materia Extraction division, felt a nerve twitch on the side of his head. Starting. It was starting. The wind whipped at his coat as he whirled around and stalked briskly up the ramp into the Mako Reactor nestled high in the mountains above Nibelheim. By rights, it ought to have been shut down and dismantled months ago, under the directive of President Reeve, but Kinshar knew perfectly well that the incompetents at the Midgar Head Office were utterly incapable of distinguishing between the reports of the crew originally sent to Nibelheim and those sent by his own men. After ensuring that the original Shinra crew had been silenced, of course.  
  
The way into the heart of the reactor was long and not easily negotiable. Still, months of practice had given him the dexterity he needed to thoughtlessly traverse the complex network of chains, pipes and ramps to bring him to what had once been the Jenova Chamber. Kinshar had waited until the Shinra crew had cleared it out before making his move, and now it was used for a purpose somewhat different than that for which it was originally designed.  
  
Excitement buoyed him as he rushed into the chamber. The stasis tube once containing the Jenova creature had been replaced. A complicated jumbled of tubes, shards of anodised metal and other assortments of junk, or what appeared to be junk to the uneducated eye, greeted him, as did his deputy, with a shouted warning.  
  
"Sir!" he screeched. "Back here, behind the screen! It's not safe out there!"  
  
He shouted himself hoarse, but still Kinshar had to strain to hear it. Over his head, channelled through tremendous superconductors and force fields, powerful, terrible flows of nameless energy raged, flowing like some luminous waterfall toward a single, microscopic point in the exact centre of the array. Sparing nary a glance at the flow – he'd watched it build up for weeks, and had long since ceased to fear its effects – he skipped into the control booth and took his seat beside his nervous deputy. The man was only in his twenties, and lacked the ambition that had driven Kinshar this far. He sneered at the pathetic wretch, and resisted the urge to toss him bodily into the flow. His indecision had infuriated Kinshar from the start but now, at least, he would not have to suffer him for much longer.  
  
Leaning towards him to enable him to hear, he screamed "Begin the sequence! Now! Now! NOW!"  
  
As usual, he was obeyed only reluctantly. The assistant's hand hesitated predictably over the large red button before Kinshar furiously pushed him aside and jabbed at the switch with all the enthusiasm in him. That single, infinitesimally small spark at the centre of the array winked out for a moment, then expanded in a tremendous starburst, blinding all who were foolish enough to stand anywhere outside the protected glass of the control booth. By the time the white glare had faded, it was as if a tear in the fabric of reality had opened into the chamber.  
  
"Doctor!" Assistant Whatsisname exclaimed, although the roar of the Mako energy had faded to a dull rumble. "IS that…could it be…how in the…?"  
  
"It's the Lifestream. It's not a dirty word, you know," Kinshar sniffed, staring at the light green glow that illuminated the room. And at the way the stream pulsed, changed and began to strain at the edges of the tear. Within seconds, it had already decreased noticeably. "And it's already healing itself…quickly, initiate phase two!" He reached into his coat, extracted his revolver and pointed it levelly at the terrified technician. "No arguments, you spineless idiot! Do it now!"  
  
The technician yelped and ducked back inside. In seconds, the hydraulic arm mounted before the array whirred into life, stabbing furiously forward. It plunged the lead-lined canister at its tip straight into the shrinking fissure. On the panel before him, an LCD readout began a countdown. Kinshar's aim never faltered. "Don't you DARE touch that Abort switch. Leave it in there. The whole eight seconds."  
  
"Sir, the fissure's collapsing! We have to…"  
  
"The full eight seconds!"  
  
"I…"  
  
The timer reached zero, the alarm fell silent and the arm jerked backward. The fissure sealed itself a bare moment later, taking with it the eerie green glow that had bathed the chamber. A single pulse of the same blinding light that had heralded its arrival replaced it, and Kinshar's team screamed one and all in renewed terror as every electrical system they possessed shorted out in the same instant.  
  
Darkness and silence reigned for a moment, once the panic had passed, as the Mako reactor settled down for the first time since its activation, burnt out by the sheer demands of the array. Then a single flashlight snapped on and its owner swung out of the booth and ran toward the ruined array. Kinshar picked his way through the debris until he came to the fallen arm, lying twisted and broken. The canister on its tip was cracked, but intact.  
  
His shaky fingers fumbled with the key lashed around his neck as they guided it into the slot on the outside of the shell, which fell open with a hiss of compressed air just as his assistant overcame his terror long enough to come behind the doctor, blinking furiously to regain his night vision.  
  
"Sir…" he whispered hoarsely, resting against some twisted machine part as he fought to regain his breath. "That surge had to have knocked out every Mako system in Nibelheim. Shinra'll be coming soon to see what happened. We have to evacuate."  
  
Kinshar heard nothing. Nestled in the palm of his hand, the single, marble sized sphere of red materia gleamed up at him, illuminated by the small flashlight clutched in the trembling fingers of his other hand. Peering into its ruby depths, still quite unable to comprehend his success, he fancied he could see two green eyes blazing fiercely.  
  
  
  
A/N: Don't worry, everyone's favourite spikey-haired mercenary and his posse will turn up next chapter.  
  
Next: A letter from Yuffie 


	2. Home for a rest

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven, and the characters, names, places, situations and so on, are property of Squaresoft corporation. I own none of them and am making no money off of them. This story was written purely for my own enjoyment.  
  
  
  
CHAPTER ONE:  
  
"Hey! Excuse me? Excuse me? Did you hear me say you could talk? You're supposed to be keeping the fuckin' pressure steady, not havin' a fuckin' tea party! You! Eyes on the rudder, we ain't over the fuckin' mountains yet! They'll have my head if we lose this thing, but not before I introduce your ass to the unfriendly end of my spear! And you! What the flying fuck do you think YOU'RE doin'? That belongs on the inside o' your locker, not over the warning light!"  
  
"Are you not being somewhat hard on them, Cid? They've had as long a trip as you or I. Could you not excuse their laxness just this once?"  
  
Cid Highwind, captain of his self-designed airship of the same name, inhaled sharply so that the tip of his ever-present cigarette blazed almost as fiercely as the blue of his eyes. His mother once told him his eyes were that particular shade because of the hours he'd spend staring at the sky. He gazed at it still, but now he did so on his own terms, on the bridge of his own vessel and with the sky surrounding him now instead of taunting him from beyond his reach.  
  
He turned to his companion, who'd paused in chiding his comrade to scratch behind his ear with one of his back paws. Nanaki of Cosmo Canyon grinned at Cid, or at least showed his teeth. The future guardian of the Canyon, at 49, as of the previous week, was young yet to assume his title. As Cid and his Highwind were usually on the frontlines of the war, a war he considered just, 'Red XIII', as his friends called him out of habit, lent his aid whenever he could, gaining the experience and, he hoped, wisdom necessary to take his place back home.  
  
Cid huffed, although he was careful to direct the smoke away from his friend. "Ease off, Red, they know I love 'em. And you gotta admit, the mountains around here are treacherous."  
  
"We're nearly a mile above them, my friend."  
  
"Well they could still screw up!"  
  
"Still…I don't think that they are the weary ones."  
  
The grizzled pilot took a deeper drag of his cigarette and then stuck it behind his ear, finished destroying his lungs, at least for a few minutes. He wouldn't admit it, but Red XIII was quite correct. With the collapse of Shinra, Reeve had been elected president by a unanimous consensus that was ratified in a general vote amongst all Midgarians. Transitions like that aren't quite so simple, though. A number of former high ranking Shinra executives took great offence to being removed from office, and had staged a counterrevolution. Reeve was literally hanging on by his fingernails, but was gradually asserting control.  
  
Cid was happy, anyways. Since offering his services to the new President ("Never thought I'd be workin' for the fuckin' Shinra"), he had all the time in the world to fly his precious Highwind, something of which he'd always dreamed even if he usually used it as a military transport. But the war was still going on. He was still young, but he certainly wasn't a spring chicken, and his constant smoking had recently begun to catch him up. He was tired.  
  
"Whatever, Red, what-the-fuck-ever," he said dismissively, although his friend knew better. He said nothing, though. He knew Cid well. "Wouldn't mind a few days off, though. Cup o' tea wouldn't come amiss, fuck knows."  
  
"We've tea on board, Cid."  
  
"That Cosmo Canyon shit ain't tea, it's fucking mouthwash. I like it so I can fuckin' feel it goin' down my throat."  
  
"Ah."  
  
"I want the spoon to stick like I'm stirrin' fuckin' syrup. Strong!"  
  
"Of course."  
  
"And no fuckin' milk."  
  
"Sounds fabulous."  
  
"And two sugars."  
  
"Well, I'm sure that goes without saying. What a blessing it is that young miss Stargazer makes it exactly that way."  
  
"…"  
  
"She does make it perfectly, you know…does she not, Cid?"  
  
"Shaddup, Red."  
  
Red showed his teeth again, and emitted a noise from the back of his throat which to the untrained ear could have been mistaken for a knowing chuckle.  
  
  
  
Midgar  
  
*Dear Father,*  
  
She paused in her correspondence, wondering if perhaps that was the correct way to start. Not correct but, rather, was it appropriate? It was on the tip of her tongue to say "hiya pop!", solely for the sake of aggravating him. But she hadn't written in months and, as much as she was loath to admit it, he was her father and he did love her, even if he still regarded her as a child. He hadn't written, of course, but even she had to admit that that was because he didn't know where she was.  
  
She took up her pen again.  
  
*Dear Dad,*  
  
She chewed its end. Not quite what she was looking for, but not so damned stiff anymore. Oh, well. She bent down again.  
  
*Sorry for not writing. It's been quite awhile, I know, but I've been pretty busy! I know I said I'd write sooner…*  
  
Again she paused. Come to think of it, she never did say she was going to write. When last she had visited Wutai, she'd had a tremendous falling out with her aged father and had left on poor terms. Whatever. His memory was never particularly clear.  
  
*…But, like I said, I've had a pretty interesting time! Since we finished saving the world, the President took me on as his personal bodyguard…he saw how I fought through the eyes of his Cait Sith. Still, I'm not always around him, though…I go out to the front lines occasionally. You're not gonna believe how much materia those rebels have! If we could use it as money, I'd be queen of the world!*  
  
She almost wrote "Queen of the fucking world", but then she remembered that her father had a stick inserted firmly up his arse most of the time, so…  
  
*Cloud's around the Shinra building pretty often too, most of the time. He's kinda like Reeve's personal advisor and occasionally goes out to fight too. Barrett usually goes with him. Those two are pretty much war-buddies now…you should see 'em when they're drunk! Not that I see 'em like that too often, but I did once, and as luck would have it, Tifa turned up too. Don't think she was too pleased, 'cause I remember Cloud never touched a drop for the rest of the month, and Barrett was stepping pretty quietly around the bar too! Oh, yeah, and I think they're kind of going out, but I'm not sure…still need to get 'round to following 'em on one of their midnight excursions but every time I do, Barrett saddles me with babysitting that brat of his. I sometimes get the feeling that that lunk sees right through me.*  
  
*Cloud and Tifa, I mean! Definitely not Cloud and Barrett!*  
  
She looked over her work, and saw that it was good. She assumed letters had a news section, and this was pretty much it. Almost, anyways. She continued:  
  
*Cid and Red…you know, the Chain-smoking potty mouth and the talking lion, or whatever…spend most of their time travelling around the world in that ship we arrived in. They stop by pretty often, though, and lemme tell ya, that disgusting, unshaven bastard is one hell of a card player! I won't make the mistake of betting my materia again!*  
  
So far, she'd included references to smoking, gambling and drunkenness. Some instinct deep within her told her that she had included everything necessary to make that one vein on the side of her father's head bulge and pulsate for a bit, knowing him. She smirked, and went on.  
  
*And Vincent went who knows where. Back to his coffin in Nibelheim probably, but who really knows? He swears he ain't a vampire, but he sure as hell acts like one. He has the social skills of one, that's for sure. *  
  
*Anywho, How've you all been? Have their been any changes since the Shinra fell? I was thinking I'd come home for a few days…when could I? I'd like to…haven't seen you in ages, and to tell you the truth, I guess I miss home a little…and we got a lot to talk about!*  
  
They had quite a bit to discuss, in fact. The two hadn't been close since the Shinra defeated Wutai. Yuffie hadn't agreed with the impassive stance her father had taken toward the loss of the glory and honour of the warriors of Wutai. The two hadn't agreed on much at all. But now the Shinra weren't a threat anymore, Reeve had returned most of the Materia to Wutai and the village had somehow become rejuvenated, and its new life prevented its culture from being swamped by all the tourists, whose numbers waned by the day as the war made travel difficult. A benefit born from the chaos of war. She was sure there was something like that in the holy scrolls.  
  
*So, like, to sum up, I would really love to meet up with you some time. Just write back and say when, okay?  
  
Love,  
  
Yuffie*  
  
She stared at the paper for a bit longer. She hadn't meant to write the last bit, but now that she had, she felt a curious disinclination to scratch it out. She mulled over it for a little while longer, before a corner of her mouth turned upward into a half-smirk. How typical…she only thought fondly of her father when separated from him by a continent and an ocean.  
  
The smirk turned into a frown when she folded the paper to fit it into a courier envelope, the only mail service that would run all the way to Wutai. Come to think of it, how was that grumpy old ghoul doing? Surely he couldn't have simply returned to his coffin, after all he'd been through with the rest of the group? She hadn't really understood him that well in the brief time they'd spent together, but she had seen occasional flashes of the humanity he so often denied.  
  
Whatever. A question for another time. She had more things to worry about at present than some grouchy old lab experiment bent on self-punishment, caring for no one but himself.  
  
  
  
Next: Vincent investigates the Nibelheim reactor and finds a force of nature far more terrifying than himself 


	3. Vincent's encounter

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven, and the characters, names, places, situations and so on, are property of Squaresoft corporation. I own none of them and am making no money off of them. This story was written purely for my own enjoyment.  
  
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! And heeeeeeeeeeere's Vinnie…  
  
Nibelheim  
  
As the wind whipped at his deep red cloak, the tormented soul known to some as Vincent Valentine and to most as that 'cold hearted bastard' and to others as simply 'death on two legs, sometimes more' scrabbled for purchase on the bare, grey rock of the south face of Mount Nibel, high above the dank mansion he normally called home. He rarely ventured out of that place, and then only to aid the townsmen when needed.  
  
Now he regretted hanging on to his PHS. That accursed stuffed robotic cat, or rather his controller, had called him up and enlisted his aid in an investigation of the Mako reactor on top of the mountain. Not that he'd needed Reeve to tell him about that. He'd noticed the chaos in town when the inhabitants of Nibelheim found themselves without power. What he would not have done had Reeve not called was emerge from his solitude and mount a one-man expedition to the reactor to see what was amiss. Mako reactors were famous for their longevity and full automation. It would require some sort of human or monster action to knock the power out.  
  
The Mayor had grumbled something about 'sending a fiend to do a man's work', but he'd fallen silent when it appeared that the fiend in question could not be persuaded to reconsider. Honestly, one would think he spent his evenings sucking the blood of the village's virgins. He half expected to open the door one evening only to find a chanting, pitchfork-toting posse preparing to burn down his house.  
  
He grunted at the thought as his steep climb brought him to the base of the errant reactor. Evening had fallen again, completing the town's first day without power. A normal human being would have required artificial illumination to even make out even it's general shape but, as he was quite aware, Vincent was by no means a normal human being. His crimson eyes gave him the vision necessary to find his way up the ramp and into the reactor atrium.  
  
He found nothing, save for a few muddy footprints. These were enough to arouse suspicions already in a permanent state of acuteness, and he made sure to check the ammunition in his revolver before advancing any further. The deeper he travelled, the more those suspicions grew. Here and there were scattered various debris. A cigarette lighter here, a shoe there, a pistol there. He knelt beside the latter and checked the clip. In the dark, the two remaining bullets glowed with a strange aura. Mako infused. Who didn't die when shot most likely lasted only long enough for Mako Poisoning to kick in. Heavy duty and one hundred percent deadly. The weapon had been fired recently.  
  
He pressed on, deeper into the reactor. For many tense minutes he balanced along catwalks, scurried up pipes and swing down chains, never making an unnecessary movement. Never wanting to; he knew not what kind of terrors were about.  
  
He'd reached the third level underground when he encountered the first corpse.  
  
He wore a Shinra uniform, but with a difference; a red armband was tied around one arm, marking him out as one of the rebels against the current president. He was doubled over, his death grimace hidden by the thick mask characteristic of all Shinra employees, civilian or military, and he lay in a pool of his own blood. It had flowed for quite some time from the small, clean wound in his back which, he suspected without uncurling the body, had been made from the front. Poor bastard had been run through.  
  
In the darkness, his eyes blazed. A swordsman, eh? He cocked his pistol, just once more for good measure.  
  
The deeper he descended, the more bodies he found until he no longer had time to check them. Most were run through. Some were burnt beyond recognition, others frozen in eternal poses of terrified flight. Still more were crushed as if by some terrible spatial pressure, whilst others were embedded in pillars of rock that had seemed to surge out of the ground. He forced himself on, against his better judgement. The PHS could not work this far underground, and in the time it took to return to the surface the thing, whatever he or it was, might escape, if it had not already done so. He did not allow himself to feel trepidation. Whatever this thing was, he was probably a creature much worse.  
  
The bloody trail lead him at last to the centre of the reactor. Faded lettering above its threshold read 'Jenova', but he knew that that was long outdated. That creature had been destroyed six months ago.  
  
Surely? He'd seen it die…  
  
He leapt into the chamber, took up a defensive stance and prepared to unleash his firepower against whatever abomination awaited him.  
  
None did, it seemed. Apart from several more mutilated bodies, the chamber was empty. The remains of some complicated machine, or array, were all that greeted him. He picked his way among it to the centre of the room, around which most of the bodies and debris were scattered. A single man lay sprawled on his back there. Quite young, certainly not much older than he. His face was locked in a rictus expression of momentary agony and eternal surprise. His blood stained the remains of a small container, of the sort used to extract materia from Mako reactors. Such as this one.  
  
He growled, examining the poor devil with perplexed eyes and rubbing his chin with his single remaining human hand, ears alert for any unpleasant surprises. What in the name of…?  
  
"My assistant."  
  
Vincent whirled and fixed the tip of his pistol squarely on the forehead of the man who'd just spoken, having had barely a second to take aim. His breathing did not change.  
  
The man who'd spoken was older, seated on one of the larger chunks of twisted metal. The grey touching his temples was visible even to Vincent's eyes in the dark, and his face was lined with that same age. But the voice held strength not immediately obvious in the body that had uttered it. His grey, knee length coat extended to his calves and was stained with the blood of the other bodies, yet the stranger did not bear a scar himself. Any injury would have been made apparent by laboured breathing, a pale face and a shaky voice. This newcomer had neither. How the hell had he escaped Vincent's attention?  
  
"An idiot, really. Spineless. Stupid git wanted to run away. Now, just when I held it in my hands, the fruit of months of research. He never quite grasped just what it was we'd plucked from the Lifestream."  
  
The eerie stranger was turning a jewelled dagger in his hands, over and over, idly testing the edge with his thumb with steady, methodical fingers.  
  
"Keep your hands where I can see them. Who are you? What happened here? What do you mean about the Lifestream?" The steel in Vincent's voice well matched the material of his companion's dagger, but he received no reply. "What happened here?!"  
  
A cold smile touched the lips of the other man. "History, I think. You're the thing from the town?" Vincent allowed the comment to pass. "I expected a Shinra crew. I was…waiting…for a Shinra crew. For hours, in fact. They're not nearly as fast as they were when Rufus ran the place." That voice had a faraway quality Vincent associated with addicts and madmen. He could have been both, for all he Vincent knew. He seriously doubted the man had perpetrated this carnage himself. If he was a survivor, he could be gripped in the throes of hysteria.  
  
Vincent relaxed somewhat. "Sir, we need to leave. This place isn't safe…"  
  
"I know." Again, that chill smile.  
  
"Put that away and turn around. Do you know who did this?"  
  
The other man brought the dagger up. Vincent tensed suddenly and prepared to squeeze the trigger of his own weapon. But the man only used the edge of the blade to stroke the stubble on his chin. Vincent had been mistaken before. The Dagger was adorned not with jewels, but with materia. He assumed the man was an experienced fighter, and hardened his stance accordingly.  
  
"I said put it away," he repeated it his grim monotone. "We are leaving now."  
  
"Yes. Yes, we certainly are," the scientist remarked, standing smoothly and holding out his dagger, the flat of the blade facing Vincent. "Not exactly as you'd prefer, I'm sure, but nonetheless…"  
  
Even in the darkness, the sparkle of the summon materia in the blade flared brightly in Vincent's eyes. But its colour was dull. It had been discharged recently, and the creature it had called had not yet returned to its captivity.  
  
The sound of a finely honed blade sliding out of an oiled sheath was what he heard next, ripping though the darkness behind him. And for the first time in quite awhile, Vincent Valentine felt the beginnings of real fear.  
  
  
  
Next: Cloud and Tifa share a moment, and Reeve has some slightly bad news 


	4. Midgar Sunset

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy Seven, and the characters, names, places, situations and so on, are property of Squaresoft corporation. I own none of them and am making no money off of them. This story was written purely for my own enjoyment.  
  
A/N: You'll probably find this one boring, but I felt a bit of characterisation was needed at this point. Don't worry, Vinny will be back next chapter.  
  
Midgar  
  
"Tifa…"  
  
"Please, Cloud."  
  
"This is childish."  
  
"Well, humour me, then!"  
  
Despite his discomfort, Cloud smiled. Tifa's eagerness had that effect on him. She always seemed to be mature for her age, perhaps too mature. When she allowed something to excite her, it was as though some gate had opened and a completely new, undeniably cute Tifa had burst out of it onto an unsuspecting Avalanche. Only around him, though. Barrett never seemed to warrant the same energy.  
  
He stumbled on another stair and cursed, nearly pulling Tifa's hands away from his eyes so he could only see where she was leading him! The last time she did this, he'd opened his eyes onto a surprise twenty-second birthday party. He'd been having a bad week, and almost rushed the group with his Ultima Weapon before he made out the first face in the gang crowding Tifa's…and his…bar in sector six. As it had turned out, that face had belonged to Vincent, and thus didn't do terribly much to calm his nerves.  
  
Ifalndale. Not sector six, Ifalndale. The sectors were no more. Their old names had been long-forgotten, but their inhabitants had renamed them nonetheless. Sector six had been renamed in honour of Ifalna, the mother of…the mother of…  
  
He forced the thought away, and allowed Tifa to lead him on. She whispered reassurances to him that she was not planning to chuck him from the top floor of the Shinra building, whose stairwell they were climbing. He chuckled nonetheless.  
  
"Couldn't we maybe have taken the elevator?"  
  
"It's out of order, Cloud," she replied innocently.  
  
"No it damned well isn't. Admit it, you just love leading me around blind, it gives you such a feeling of power…"  
  
"We're HE-RE!" She said, cutting him off. Too late. His foot was already in mid air and, finding no stair, came down upon the concrete of the rooftop, shattering his balance. He stumbled forward, jerking out of Tifa's grasp and careening forward wildly, arms flailing. He struck something at waste level, and gripped it with both hands, bringing himself to a stop, almost toppling over it…  
  
…And opened his eyes to a first class view of the quick way down from the top level of the Shinra building.  
  
*Oh. My. God.*  
  
He stared fixedly at the many hundreds of feet between himself and street level before he felt firm hands seize him around the shoulders and gently pull him back over the railing, eyes still open wide.  
  
"Jeez, Cloud…I'm so sorry," Tifa breathed, still clutching him from behind like an over stuffed teddy bear. He said nothing, holding her hands where they met across his chest. The two remained frozen like that for slightly longer than was strictly necessary before Cloud pulled away with a murmured 'okay' and Tifa slowly clasped her hands behind her back with a faint shade of red colouring her cheeks.  
  
"Um…okay!" Cloud said, turning away from the railing to face her and breaking the sudden silence that had fallen between them. "So…um…what'd you want to show me?"  
  
At this, Tifa snorted, the spell now completely broken. She slapped her head with a smile of undisguised amusement on her face. "Cloud…have you really been inside that long?" she said, giggling.  
  
His uncertainly changed to annoyance in a heartbeat. He folded his arms with mock sternness and glared at her. "Oh, so first you nearly send me falling to my death, then you…"  
  
"Turn around, Cloud! God, you can be so damned unromantic sometimes."  
  
He sighed, and did. He placed both hands on the railings and shot a quick glance at the horizon. Tifa sidled up to him expectantly. "It's Midgar, Tif. I see it everyday. I work there…look, am I not getting something?"  
  
He said this in mild annoyance as she burst into another giggle fit. "I said look, Cloud!" she laughed, turning his head firmly with both hands on his cheeks. He clear blue eyes gazed out over the city of Midgar. He did know it inside-out, even more so since AVALANCHE had become Reeve's personal strike-force, and he'd seen it half-demolished, then painstakingly rebuilt. And, slowly and piecemeal, improved.  
  
And now the air didn't smell quite as pungent as once it did. That glow on the horizon came from the rays of the setting sun peeking over the horizon and striking the rain clouds that had just finished showering the city in a gentle spring rain. A few months ago, when the city and the nation had been run as a corporation and its people treated as mindless cogs in the great economic machine, the horizon would have looked like a bruise as the light from a midday summer sun strained to get through the heavy clouds of toxic waste blanketing the city night and day. The rain? Had one stood in it for too long, one's skin would have begun to burn.  
  
No longer. The Shinra Corporation taken over by Reeve was rich beyond the dreams of mortal man. There were funds enough not only to rebuild, but also to rejuvenate. The city and, indeed, much of the world still drew upon Mako energy to sustain it, but the industries it supported had been made cleaner by Reeve's endeavours, as was evidenced by the comparative purity of the sunset and the afternoon; For once, the city smelled fresher after the rain. Reeve had promised that Cid would head a rejuvenated space-program, one whose mandate was to deploy the technology necessary to harvest the inexhaustible energy of the sun.  
  
There was still plenty wrong with the city, of course. The millions trapped beneath the city in the slums clambered for a way out of their misery. Although the search for a new energy source continued, the planet still groaned as the remaining Mako reactors siphoned off its life-blood. And then, of course, the old order flatly refused to die, fighting a hopeless and protracted war with no end yet in sight.  
  
Cloud saw none of that, though. All that met his eyes was a simple, quite ordinary sunset, quite incomparable to those of his home in Nibelheim. It was enough, though, more than enough to convince him that all of his effort had not been wasted.  
  
"It's beautiful, Tifa."  
  
His companion giggled again, but this time the sound was less like a schoolgirl, and more nervous. He wasn't surprised. The sound of the sincerity in his own voice frightened even him. "Got it at last, did you?"  
  
He smiled, pulling his eyes away from the vista. As was usual when they were together, his mood went from brooding to…some sort of nervous trepidation he couldn't quite define and suddenly a mutual awkwardness would settle between them like a passing mist. Their gazes, framed by the backdrop of the sunset, locked, and stayed locked. Again. The trepidation grew, as either mulled over what next to do.  
  
As they always would, every time this happened. And it happened with greater frequency now. The Meteor episode had altered Cloud, filling him with a thousand questions, and no small amount of self-doubt. And the pain of a love so brief that it had barely been, but which had lasted long enough to sharpen the loss, still plagued him. Even through all of the past busy months, erecting a façade of professionalism as he aided Reeve in the war, he'd found time to confront his demons only in one small battle at a time, nowhere near what he needed to lay them to rest for good.  
  
And through his flailing efforts, she'd always been there. The bar was hers, but he hadn't even had to ask if she would let him stay, and Barrett seemed to harbour no objections either. Late at night, when he'd find himself curled up on the roof staring blankly into the space between the earth and the Plate, she would always materialise up there with him, with a blanket to share, wordless company and a touch gentle enough to remind him that he was not alone. Then he'd be back to normal in the morning, businesslike, cheerful, the same old Cloud. And then, sooner or later, the bleakness would seize him again, and again she would be there for him.  
  
Like now. And like all those other times, it would come down to this, this brief knife-edge of tension between the two, with her standing before him, studying him as if waiting for some long-sought answer to some oft-asked question. And with him mirroring her expression, mulling over that question and desperately searching inside of himself for some answer, any answer, to give her. And finding none. At least, none of which he was sure.  
  
So he shied away from the unspoken query, taking the hand of his friend instead grinning. "Oh yeah. Took awhile, true, but I guess I got it in the end."  
  
She smiled back, but the smile, as the saying went, did not reach her eyes. Her question…her plea…would go unanswered for yet another night. But her hand squeezed his in acknowledgement.  
  
The PHS chose that moment to break the silence that had fallen between them with its shrill, urgent chime.  
  
  
  
Six months ago…head of Urban Planning and Development. Now, President of all of bloody Shinra, Reeve lamented for the fourth time that day, just two down from his daily quota of "Why Me?"'s. And he still couldn't believe it, even after he'd been at it for six months. During that time, he'd had to supervise the cleanup of Midgar, still a work-in-progress, pour billions of Gil into research on new power sources to replace Mako energy, plan a new space program, try and solve all of the slums' social ills, Draw up blueprints for a new Midgar and deal with what amounted to a continental civil war. Life had been so simple when he'd devoted half his attention to gallivanting around the world in the form of a stuffed cat riding a moogle.  
  
But of course, he'd been doing so just so he could deceive his travelling companions back then. Now he could no longer do so, nor did he have any wish to now that the Shinra were effectively gone for good, or would be once he had the military strength to crush the rebels at their headquarters in Junon. The time for masquerading was over. Now he had a company and a nation to run, and millions upon millions of people depended on him, trusting him to help them even though he'd once been a part of the very organisation that had driven them into their current misery.  
  
The people he'd trusted the most in these past six months, the ones who had made him what he was today, now stood before him. Cloud Strife, the leader of the once-rebel group Avalanche and a skilled warrior, stood rapt to attention, or at least, slightly more than usual. Reeve suspected that the young ex-SOLDIER had never quite grasped that he no longer was, and had never really been, a member of Shinra's elite military corps.  
  
His friend and long-time confidant and, Reeve strongly suspected, secret lover, from the looks he'd seen her give him, Miss Tifa Lockheart, stood beside him, comparatively more at ease. He wouldn't dare admit it to anyone, but he was usually quite relieved when she left his office after a briefing. Not because she was a terribly bad person…far from it, in fact! Rather, he had this strange tendency to lose concentration when confronted with a woman whose skirt barely served its purpose of preserving decency, and that wasn't even taking her shirt into account.  
  
The third of their group, an uncouth slumdweller by the name of Barret Wallace…well, try as he might, Reeve could never imagine him standing in anything other than that stoic, looming stance of his. Black eyes glared at him from a face only slightly less dark. Despite having worked with him for six months, the man still terrified him tremendously, especially now that he could hide behind Cait Sith no longer. He was the one out of the whole group who Reeve was sure had not yet forgiven his deception of six months ago. No matter. He seemed to respect Reeve's efforts at rebuilding and improving Midgar, and that was good enough for him. For now, at any rate.  
  
The last of the group, Yuffie Kisaragi, a Wutinese ninja, was the one that amused him the most. Usually, the ninjas he always pictured in his mind were sleek, silent and deadly. Not this one…she bounced all over the place, a wild ball of energy, infuriatingly hyperactive at times and heartbreakingly sincere at others. The contradiction extended to her fighting skills, which were why he'd got her to stay on as his personal bodyguard…he'd seen her bring down foes many times her size and still manage to skip away unscratched. There was no denying her talent, nor her sheer insufferability.  
  
Whetever their personality, none of them would be pleased with what he was about to tell them.  
  
"Right, Reeve, we're here. Waitin' for anyone else, or are you just gonna cut to the chase?"  
  
Gruff impatience. Very much Barrett's trademark. Reeve rose from behind his desk. He always did when they entered the room, addressing them on their terms, an equal, not a superior to whom they made their reports.  
  
"As it happens, we ARE waiting for Cid and Red. They're bringing the Highwind. I diverted them from their original course, which was Rocket Town, and they're making best speed for Midgar. They wanted to stop in Nibelheim first, but I convinced them that it was too risky, with only the two of them."  
  
"Can't see how you got Cid to agree to anything he didn't want t'do, but okay…" Yuffie shrugged, but Cloud had no such humorous comment.  
  
"What do you mean, 'risky'?" he asked, eyes widening at the mention of his hometown. Beside him, Tifa started as well. "Has there been an attack in Nibelheim? I thought that was too far from the main war."  
  
Reeve hesitated. Barrett, always looking for some miniscule detection to fuel his distrust, growled. "What are you hiding, pussy cat?"  
  
He felt a flash of annoyance, then suppressed it, telling himself that Barrett had a right to be suspicious. Instead he said, quite evenly; "We…we don't know yet. There was an accident of some kind at the Nibelheim reactor about twelve hours ago. We don't know what caused it, and I dispatched a crew to see what happened to the custodians I'd sent there to oversee its conversion to natural gas. You know there're large deposits around mount Nibel…"  
  
"Weren't you listenin' when I came in here, li'l kitty? Cut to the fuckin' chase!"  
  
"…I sent Vincent in there to check it first."  
  
He'd blurted it out, instead of breaking it gently. A mistake. Tifa was the first to make comment. "Vincent? God, I'd almost forgotten that he lived out there…has he said what the problem was yet? Was it a rebel attack?"  
  
"Man, y'all sent him in there alone? Ain't worth quite as much as a Shinra squad , huh, 'mister president'?"  
  
"Chill, Barrett. Let's face it, Vinnie's probably a heck of a lot worse than anything the rebels can throw at him…"  
  
"Quiet!"  
  
The gathering fell silent. For a brief moment, they'd thought Reeve had lost his temper. Instead, once they'd got over the shock of being silenced, they realised that the venomous glare and sharp command came not from Reeve, but from Cloud. He turned away from them, and something about his posture told the others that the news they were about to hear was quite a bit direr than originally believed. "Reeve…what's happened to Vincent?"  
  
"Um…I sent him into the reactor, then he contacted me. By PHS, after a silence of a few hours."  
  
Cloud pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. The feeling dread for his old town grew. "What did he find?"  
  
At this, Reeve seemed to stumble. Cloud's eyes narrowed. Reeve was nervous. About Cloud? The rest of Avalanche? Or something else entirely? His voice hardened. "Reeve. What did he find."  
  
"I don't know."  
  
Cloud's present humour had spread to the others, and they remained silent when Reeve removed his own PHS from his coat and plugged it into a receptacle on his desk. His expression was grim and apologetic. His revelation hadn't gone quite as calmly as he planned. In truth, the fear he felt over Vincent's fate had ensured that from the start. "This is all I could get from him. I'm sorry."  
  
When he pressed the appropriate button, the static was only minimal, but still there. Nibelheim was a long way to the west, across an ocean and two continents. But not so prominent so as to render Vincent's words incomprehensible. The voice was the same, everyone knew. That same growl to which they'd grown accustomed on their adventure. Same tone, inflection, everything. Their fears were assuaged right up until the moment they paid attention to the words.  
  
"Reeve…" he said, a voice from some past catastrophe. There was some sort of jolt, and a burst of static before the recording stabilised enough for them to make out the rest. "Reeve…help…me…"  
  
There was some shouting next, and gunshots, but the recording was drowned out by the roar of the Highwind's jet engines as the airship shot steadily closer to the Shinra building. It would be over the building in time for the Avalanchers to finish their mad sprint to the top of the stairs.  
  
  
  
Next: Avalanche rushes to Vincent's aid, but are they too late to prevent him from descending into the savagery he constantly wrestles inside of him? 


End file.
